I remember them. I was there. I was here.
But I’m not in any of the photos. They’re all of Kyra. One frame draws my attention. A young Kyra in oversize fishing gear. It was the spring we both turned ten, and school had given us a work-experience assignment. We had to shadow someone at their day job, and Kyra decided we’d go fishing. We borrowed gear from the tourist center and joined Piper’s father along the lakeshore. Five minutes in, Kyra decided that she hated sitting around waiting for fish to bite, but I loved it, so she stuck around. She caught a fish big enough for a meal and then some, and she was so proud that she posed with her catch. This isn’t that photo, though. This is the one where we were sitting side by side, arms around each other’s shoulders.
Except, I’m nowhere to be seen. Kyra is smiling alone.
Did Mrs. Henderson edit this? Do I just not remember this photo?
I take a step closer and reach for the frame when someone tuts. I turn toward the sound, but the hall is empty.
I back into the living room, but that has changed in a thousand small ways too. There’s a new couch. A lamp has been moved to a table on the other side of the room. But most glaring are the half-dozen bouquets of wildflowers with condolence cards. Kyra abhorred grief. When her grandfather died, she walked out of the service, and she talked me into doing the same. She didn’t want to mourn him; she wanted to celebrate him. But Lost didn’t share that sentiment. They wanted their traditional, somber service.
Mrs. Henderson carries in a plate of her specialty sourdough muffins from the kitchen. They smell of sugar and comfort, potent reminders of all the times Kyra and I snuck freshly baked cookies and tablespoons of icing. My hands tingle as I remember the playful swat of Mrs. Henderson’s spatula across our knuckles when she tried to scare us away. Suddenly my eyes burn, and I can’t swallow back a sob.
Mrs. H sets the plate on the coffee table and pulls me into another hug. “Oh, Corey.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. H,” I whisper. “I wish I had come sooner.” I can’t articulate what I really want to say. That I left Kyra. That I should’ve paid more attention to her letters. That because of my absence and silence, her death is partially my fault. “I should have been here for her.”
“It wasn’t your choice, sweetheart,” Mrs. H says as we sit down on the couch. “I’m sure Kyra understood. She was happy, you know. Near the end.”
“How could she have possibly been happy?” That’s something you say about someone old who has died, someone who lived a century. Not about a seventeen-year-old girl whose body was found floating under the ice after she cut her own life short. She didn’t sound happy.
Mrs. Henderson gives a fragile smile. “She came home to us. I wish you could’ve seen how much she’d changed these last few months. She found her place here.”
I blink. “She did?” She never wrote about that to me. She still seemed to be struggling. Did I misunderstand? How much did she leave out? “Oh. So they helped her in Fairbanks?”
“Oh no, she never went. We decided it would be better for her here.”
Rowanne, Kyra’s therapist, traveled between patients in various towns, just like Mom did as a physiotherapist. “But I thought Rowanne recom—”
“Rowanne stopped coming to Lost Creek shortly after your family left,” Mrs. Henderson snaps. Her mouth thins and her eyes flash. I scoot back a little on the couch. “She abandoned Kyra.”
I wince. “Then what changed? Did you find her another therapist? Better medication?”
Mrs. H looks at me as if I’ve grown two heads or started speaking in tongues. “Corey, after you left, Kyra finally understood that the community loved her too, that she belonged here. That was what made her happy. You can see it in her recent paintings, in her art. Lost gave her purpose. It set her heart and mind alight.”
Alight. A shiver runs down my spine when I hear that word again.
“Lost Creek never accepted her like that.”
Like Piper, Mrs. H’s smile slips and she withdraws. “The town embraced her.”
This was what Kyra wanted—to be accepted. “I didn’t think she’d find that in Lost,” I say very carefully.
“Well, she did, Corey. You weren’t here.”
I pick up one of the cups of tea Mrs. H set out for us. I let it warm my hands before I ask, “Then why did she leave? If she was so happy, why didn’t she wait for me? She knew I was coming.”
“No star can burn forever, Corey. You’ve always had a head for science, you must know that. It was Kyra’s time to let go,” she says, with almost religious reverence. Then she nods behind me. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I shift to see a painting resting on the floor behind the couch. The canvas is surrounded by bouquets, candles, and ribbons. Blood roars in my ears. The teacup tumbles from my hands.
I recognize it as one of Kyra’s. The painting is so detailed, it’s like looking at a photograph. A circle of blossoms is spread out over snow and ice. The flowers look so real it’s as if they’ve been placed on top of the canvas itself.
The constellation of Orion reflects in the surface. The brightest red star—Betelgeuse—shines like the supernova it’s turning into, and it lights up the painting. It lights up the ice.
It lights up the body beneath it.
Kyra had painted herself floating under the translucent ice. Her brown hair is spread out around her, and her hazel eyes are opened wide. Even as she sinks into the dark abyss of the lake, she smiles.
And I’m numb.
Loss
Mrs. H helps me clean up my spilled tea with a forced smile. She won’t comment on the painting, beyond the quality of the art, and I can’t find the words to ask her when Kyra made this canvas—how long she knew this was coming, and why the Hendersons didn’t think to question their daughter about her painting. It makes no sense. How can Mrs. Henderson stare at this image wistfully, talking about color and shadow, when I want to cover it up and never see it again?
Instead, I focus on Mrs. H. The timbre of her voice used to soothe me. Kyra and I would spend hours at her house or in her bakery, listening to her gossip while she worked. But now, her voice chafes. I don’t want to hear about how this year’s catch is terrible, or how the Halwoods’ marriage ended with Anna hitching a ride out of town in the mail plane, or even about the potential opportunities for Mr. H’s mine and the buzz of hope that brings to the mining families in town. I just want to know what happened to my best friend.
Her chatter is interrupted when Mr. H walks in with company. Kyra was lanky like her father and shared his intelligent eyes, but now Mr. H has grown pale and gray. He pulls me into a hug. The smell of his cologne is so familiar, I feel like I never left.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. H.” My voice catches. “I wish I could have been here.”
“Corey. Kyra would’ve appreciated you being here now,” he says.
“What happened?” I blurt out.
“I lost my daughter,” Mr. H says. He exhales. “It was her time.”
His words are spoken with so much pain, such finality, that I know there’s no reopening the conversation, despite all the questions I carry with me. The only soft words that Mr. H ever had were for Kyra. I wonder what he’ll do with them now.
I turn to the middle-aged, brown-skinned man standing behind Mr. H. He’s wearing a fancy suit that makes him looks like he got sidetracked on his way to one of the cities. Mr. H’s associates rarely make it out to Lost. But I guess if Mr. H can’t leave to do business, his business comes to him.
“You must be young Kyra’s friend,” the man says. His words are measured, careful but pleasant. “My name is Mr. Sarin.”
“Corey. Corey Johnson.”