I don’t consciously think about where I want to go, my feet just take me. I head toward the workers’ residences that were built after the gold rush, when quartz mining took off. This is the shabby part of town. Unlike the houses on Main, these houses are small and creaky, with roofs that groan under the weight of snow. But even though the walls could barely keep the cold out, they kept the warmth in.
Home.
Before Dad left, we were four against the world. After that, Mom traveled back and forth between Lost and Fairbanks and the surrounding towns more and more, and Luke and I fended for ourselves, with the help of neighbors, especially Sheriff Flynn, the Hendersons, and the Mordens. Kyra would come over to play board games with the two of us until long past midnight. Luke, Tobias, and I would play ball in the yard. Seven months ago, I was at home here.
Luke’s Lost Creek is the town I remember. Every year, Lost would bond over the Yukon Quest dogsled race. We’d celebrate the new year with large bonfires. And we would eat the most absurd meals when the ice prevented supplies from coming in and Jan’s grocery store from being stocked.
Once you’ve settled in, you should walk over, Piper told me yesterday.
I turn the corner and search my pocket for a key I no longer own, for a place that is no longer mine, and I come to a dead stop.
Because at the end of the street, there is no house. Support beams stand, singed and blackened. Parts of the roof lie half buried under the snow. A magenta ribbon is tied to the remains of the gate. The house that I once called home is gone.
On what used to be our threshold, a handful of pink flowers peek out of a drift of snow. I brush away the snow and stare at the frozen salmonberry blossoms. They’re crumbled and torn. A message is scrawled on one of the support beams.
Three simple words: So be it.
Mrs. Robinson’s voice echoes in my ears. It’s good fertilizer, ashes. If used sparingly and knowingly, ashes will help your garden grow.
Abandon Hope
Nine Months Before
I nibbled on my pen cap and stared at glow-in-the-dark stars that I’d carefully placed on my ceiling. Kyra and I were both working on assignments for one of the remote English classes all the juniors and seniors took. Which was to say, she was working while I was waiting for inspiration. I would take math over literature any day.
“‘Through me you must go into the city of sorrow: through me you must go into eternal pain: through me you must go among the lost people,’” Kyra read, then scribbled something in her notebook. “‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here.’” She looked up. “Does that not sound like Lost to you?”
“Dante’s inscription over the gate of Hell?” I laughed. “No, not particularly. It sounds depressing.”
Her eyes flashed. “Is that what you think my depressive episodes are like? Eternal pain?”
“I—I didn’t mean—” I stammered. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s a turn of phrase. I don’t know what your episodes are like.” I’d thought about asking her but never actually did. I could never find the right words. Mostly because, to me, her depressions were synonymous with closed doors and loneliness, and they scared me. I didn’t know how to fix them for her.
Kyra wet her lips. “I was reading through Grandfather’s history of Lost last night. ‘As the story goes, the town of Lost Creek, Alaska, isn’t named after the eponymous stream. It’s named after its first group of colonial settlers, a handful of adventurers, for whom the world didn’t have a place anymore. Lost men, who didn’t belong anywhere else.’” The cadence of Kyra’s voice lends weight to her words. “?They set down their roots, stealing land that was never theirs, and carved their home between the mountains and the mines, the hot springs, the river, and the lake, during those long summer days when anything seemed possible. Then the cold came. And these settlers discovered that they had built their home in the heart of winter. They’d come for new opportunity, but they found that winter is not malleable, and frost settles too. And no matter how hard they tried, they could not escape being lost.’”
I shivered in delight.
Kyra didn’t smile. “Or maybe it said, ‘They could not escape Lost.’ Grandfather’s handwriting is hard to decipher sometimes.”
I gazed out of my window, to the front yard where Luke and Tobias were playing ball. “That’s quite a difference.”
“No.” Kyra shook her head and picked up her pen again. “It really isn’t.”
Gifts
I start awake in the middle of the night. The lights are still on—I didn’t want to be surrounded by darkness. My thoughts and dreams are dark enough. The outbuilding is quiet. Everything is still. I’d locked the closet and pushed the desk chair against it. But my heart is hammering out of control.
I don’t know what woke me. Despite the room being silent, I do not feel alone. I can feel eyes on me. I can hear the soft sound of breathing. But I don’t turn to my side or look around because I know if I do, I’ll find another presence in this room, someone leaning against the desk.
Kyra used to do this. She’d sit and watch me. And when she got restless, she’d jump on my bed in the middle of the night, scaring the life out of me. I wait for the covers to move, for the bed to creak under her weight.
They don’t. But the feeling of being watched doesn’t abate. It grows stronger. A chill runs along my spine.
I close my eyes, shift my head, and force myself to look into the room. No one.
Then my gaze travels over to my backpack. I’d dumped my clothes in a hasty pile on top of it before I went to sleep. It had toppled over to lean against the desk.
A handful of freshly picked salmonberry flowers rest on my shirt.
I grow cold despite the heavy blankets I’m burrowed in. I push the covers aside and walk over to the backpack. The floor is ice under my feet.
When I brush the flowers away, the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
Tucked into my shirt lies a pencil sketch of me, a scene like the one from the airstrip yesterday. My backpack is slung over my shoulder. In the distance stands a girl who may be Piper. Who may be Kyra.
Come to me.
Day Three
Wholesome Lives and Hot Springs
Kyra was here. She was here, and she’s waiting for me. I can’t shake the thought from my mind. She’s still waiting for me.
I have to go to her.
After breakfast, I tell Mrs. Henderson I’m going to take a walk. I don’t tell that her I’m going to the spa, in case she tries to stop me. But before I can go to the memorial this afternoon, I need to know where she lived—how she lived—as well as how she died.
With my lunch packed, I make the trek to the hot springs. Although a solitary road leads from Lost Creek to the spa, it’s overgrown and doesn’t get plowed in winter, so I follow the shortcut through the woods.
In the early morning twilight, it’s an easy walk, more so than in the afternoon when the branches cast shadows and the trees whisper. It isn’t snowing, which is a rare occurrence in winter, and I’m going to see Kyra.
Part of me knows it’s not rational, expecting to find her at the hot springs, but that doesn’t stop my heart from racing. I’m giddy with hope. I envelop myself in the wild beauty of our nature. The pine forest seems to go on forever. In spring, it’s not only humans who inhabit these parts, but bears and moose and eagles. Many a summer, we’ve had black bears stroll down Main, and if a moose tried to eat its way through Mrs. Robinson’s garden, it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s a coexistence that’s as natural as breathing.