“It’s okay.” I’m not sure what else to say. Thanks? I appreciate your being here? I like Roshan from what I know of him, and once upon a time, Sam was a friend. But so many of the people I used to trust have hurt me over the last few days, and I don’t want to be caught off guard again. Besides, if they stood by and watched this happen to Kyra, I don’t want to be their friend anyway.
Roshan looks around with a frown, then swings his backpack off his shoulder and places it in front of the fireplace. He starts to unpack what’s inside—a loaf of bread. Cheese. M&M’s. Two bottles of soda. More chocolate. Goldfish crackers. Pop-Tarts. He hums while he works, and I recognize the tune as a Christmas carol, not the terrifying melody I keep hearing from the rest of the town.
And despite myself, I laugh. “Are you preparing for a siege?”
“We didn’t think you had time to eat—or a place to eat, for that matter,” Sam says. “But Dad isn’t much of a cook, and…”
“The rest of the town wasn’t very generous,” I finish for him.
“Fortunately, my father keeps our pantry well stocked,” Sam says. He shrugs. “Dad was an Eagle Scout. We could’ve brought you gas, rope, and dried peas too, but that seemed a bit too ‘end of the world.’”
A small part of me wants to challenge him that this is, in fact, the end of the world, but I know better. Especially when Roshan unwraps the cheese, and my mouth begins to water.
“I don’t trust you,” I say, honestly. “But since you come bearing food, I won’t say no.”
Sam looks crushed at that news, but Roshan nods. “I can work with that. And company?”
I glance around the spa. “I’m counting on you to keep the nightmares at bay.”
I want him to laugh. I want to laugh too. But I can’t. The words are true.
I pick up my parka from the floor and shrug into it. “I’ll be at the springs.”
? ? ?
I sit at the edge of the hot springs. I’m dressed warmly enough, and there’s a weird temperature balance between the deep snow and the hot water. I don’t know how much time has passed. Minutes? Maybe days or hours. Silence always seems to make time go slower. Loneliness too.
I smell the food before I hear the footsteps, and this time, my stomach actually groans.
But it isn’t Roshan as I expected. It’s Sam. He holds an old blanket from one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Sam hands me a cheese sandwich, the bread fresh and fragrant. I never thought a sandwich could look like food from the gods.
“If we had a fire here, we could grill it,” he says.
I munch on the sandwich. “We could have s’mores.” Kyra and I made s’mores here, every summer.
“Picnic around the fire, under the stars?”
“Don’t go getting any romantic notions,” I say. “Besides, it’s still snowing.”
Sam smiles. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I say after I’ve devoured a handful of Goldfish crackers, “but there were entire months where I don’t think I heard you say a single word. It almost made me wonder if you could talk.”
“I didn’t feel like I had much to say. Not anything worth contributing to a conversation, at least.” He shrugs—or winces, maybe. “Besides, it’s much easier to observe in silence. When you don’t draw attention to yourself, it’s amazing how easily people forget that you exist.”
I’ve heard those words before.
“Kyra used to say the same thing,” I whisper.
The snow crunches and Roshan appears with more food. He sits next to Sam, close. “What are you talking about?”
“Invisibility,” Sam says.
I shiver. I have so much to ask the two of them. Sam, who was here, the sheriff’s son who learned to smile. Roshan, who didn’t know my Lost, but must have seen how the town changed. But it feels so wrong to be here with them without Kyra, and I can’t find the right words yet.
“How did you even find Lost, Roshan?” I ask instead. “It’s not like Lost Creek is known outside of Alaska. Or outside of the town itself, even.”
Roshan nibbles at a bit of cheese. “How much do you know about geology—or chemistry, for that matter? Because I can try to explain why the ground is rich here, but it can get pretty boring. The gist of it is, Father owns a company that produces tungsten alloys. He’s been on the lookout for private mining opportunities, and he stumbled upon Lost. Between the mining history here, the temperature, and the geology of the earth’s crust, he thought it would be the perfect place. Plus, there are fewer competitors here in the middle of nowhere than in, say, Russia or Canada. Though, of course, he has to consider the environmental impact and the local effect on Native communities. He wants to do this right, if there is such a way.”
He’s more matter-of-fact about the possible consequences than all of Lost has been. “How did he stumble upon it?” I wonder.
Roshan scratches his ear, a little self-consciously. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling with Father during school holidays. From rainy old England to Dad’s family in India to everywhere in the world. Alaska always sounded like the stuff of legends to me. I wanted an excuse to travel here, so I traced down the geological surveys and investigation reports.”
“Is Lost everything you expected?” I try and fail to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
Roshan looks at Sam. “Yes, it is.”
Sam smiles, and vague blotches of red appear on his cheeks. He peeks up at the overcast sky. “You know the town never meant for any harm to come to Kyra, don’t you, Corey?”
I don’t think they cared enough to consider harm. But even if they had… “I never meant for any harm to come to Kyra either, and yet here we are. Intent only takes us so far. It’s a shield people hide behind, but not a weapon.” I sigh. “I’m glad you love it here though, Roshan. I did too. It was home to me.”
“Not anymore?”
“Not anymore.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Outsider.”
He means it as a joke, but… “Yeah.” I hug my knees close. “Sam? You came here to see Kyra, didn’t you?”
He smiles a sad smile. “Not for the paintings. She seemed lonely, and I was lonely too. I figured we could be lonely together. I regret not having done that a long time ago. But when you were here, the two of you were inseparable. I didn’t think you wanted anyone else to intrude. When you left… I didn’t want her to be completely on her own.”
“Was she… Was she happy?”
He glances back at the spa. “Sometimes. But I think she wanted more from life. She would’ve escaped if she could have.”
As he says that, movement near the tree line catches my eye. The shadows outside the spa grounds are deep and dark, so I can’t tell what it is. A tree bending in the wind? An animal, perhaps? A person?
I squint, but I can’t be sure. Maybe I’m imagining things. The lines between reality and the imaginary have blurred too much already.
“Corey?” Sam’s voice draws me back.
“Hm, yes?”
“Do you remember Kyra’s presentation about the stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island? I don’t even remember what class it was for, only that Kyra happened to be reading Russian folklore and wanted to talk about mysteries rather than explanations.”
“I remember.” I smile, even though it feels unnatural. I remember that Kyra. But I also remember how some people laughed at her poster presentation. (Maybe not Sam. Maybe this is revisionist history.) They already thought she was odd, and that presentation further proved to them that she was.
But studying the island hadn’t just been about the school project. That week, Kyra was cycling back into depression, and unlike with her highs, she couldn’t turn to painting to cope. The mysteries were soothing, ideas that her mind could ponder in loops. She’d been curious about the labyrinths for months, and the surrounding areas—Onega Bay and the Solovetsky Islands—were high on her list of places to visit. But that week, talking about the labyrinths simply made it easier for her to function.
And eventually, she felt better again. Or at least, I thought she did.
But right here and now, at this abandoned spa, I can’t help but wonder about time and the death of stars. The stars we see in the night sky are so far away that it takes years for us to see it when they die. I can’t help but wonder if Kyra had burned out long before I left—and if we simply hadn’t seen it.
Northern Lights