“I’m sorry for the loss of your friend, Ms. Johnson. It is a tragedy to lose one so young, especially a girl who was liked and respected by all.”
The Lost Creek I knew never respected Kyra. They didn’t care about her art, and they didn’t care about her. But I don’t tell him that. Raw emotions make the memories too harsh, make the truth hurt too much. “She deserved so much more.”
“Death is a thief,” Mr. Sarin says after a moment. His expression is filled with kind concern. “It slips into our lives and steals what we care about most. It breaks us, and even when we piece ourselves together again, the pain remains. My son knows that feeling and so do I, but…” He hesitates. “I believe that even death is not beyond hope. Kyra cared deeply for you. Perhaps you will believe that she still watches out for Lost Creek. Perhaps you’ll believe that she still watches out for you.”
“She is,” I whisper. Because I’m here now, I kept my promise to return to Lost, to her. And despite everything that has changed, part of me believes that somewhere, somehow, Kyra is still waiting for me.
Saints and Sourdough
A Year and a Half Before
If it were up to Lost, they would have forgotten that Kyra existed. Long gone were the memories of the young girl they used to know, before she started showing symptoms in her early teens. The girl who laughed at the right jokes and behaved appropriately, as they expected. Not the girl who wandered through town for nights on end and threatened their way of being by sharing their secrets with an outsider—even if that outsider was her therapist.
And when Kyra’s highs dimmed and she fell into darkness, when she locked herself in her room and slept through the long nights, Lost went about its days as if nothing were wrong. The only difference was that those were the days when I belonged again because I wasn’t marred by her presence. Those were the days I had other friends too.
I never told Kyra that, and she never asked.
It was a particularly cold spring day, after the ice broke up, when the entire school congregated in Claja, the small pub at the edge of Lost. Restless energy buzzed around me. By night, this pub was the gathering place for Lost’s fishermen and workers. By day, it doubled as a café for high school students. It was where everyone went after school was out and before our parents needed us. We would gather and gossip and play games and drink hot chocolate.
I wasn’t supposed to be there. Kyra and I had planned to hole up in the old spa to do our homework. But she went home before school ended and when I swung by her house, she didn’t want to see me—or anyone. So I was left with what Lost considered a “normal” weekday afternoon.
The only open seat was at a table with Piper and Sam Flynn, the sheriff’s son. They’d both always been kind to me, in school and out. They beckoned me over.
Neither of them had spoken a word to Kyra since her diagnosis, as far as I could tell. It was amazing how you could be invisible in Lost Creek, even if you didn’t want to be. But I knew from experience that everyone loved to talk about Kyra. Treatment options. Scary stories about people who “snapped” and became violent. Some speculated about whether she was lying to get attention, not that it would make her any more popular.
Piper usually kept her cool, but that day, she too declared Kyra an outsider.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I spat at her. “Her family’s been part of Lost Creek for generations. She’s lived here all her life. She’s no outsider.”
Piper shrugged. “Maybe not by blood, but you can’t deny that she’s a freak. She’s not one of us.”
“She always has been,” I shot back. Heat flushed through me.
“Not anymore.”
Not anymore. Not since Kyra first started having episodes. Not since the diagnosis. I didn’t think two simple words could have such an impact. I shook my head. “No. She’s still the same Kyra, and if you can’t accept that, it says a whole lot more about you than it does about her.”
I would’ve moved to another table, but there was nowhere else to go. After a long silence, Piper pushed a plate with chocolate chip cookies from Mrs. H’s bakery toward me. “I’m sorry. I really am. I know it must be difficult being her friend.”
I’d heard that before. A thousand times, and a thousand times too many.
On the other side of the table, Sam winced and looked away. He rarely spoke and he never smiled, but he was never purposely cruel either.
Anger boiled within me, churning through my body, from my stomach to my fingertips. I was tired. Of their assumptions. Of having to defend our friendship. I looked out the window. The snow distorted the people outside, bundled up in their warmest clothes. “It’s no harder to be Kyra’s friend than it is to be yours or anyone else’s.”
“I think you’re a saint for putting up with her,” she said. She smiled and nudged the plate a little farther. She didn’t want me to be offended. And I was a coward, not telling her how much her words hurt. Instead, I accepted a cookie, as a peace offering, and told her what I knew to be true.
“She’s one of us, Piper. We’ve lived through the same winters. She’s one of us. And she always will be.”
Doorways
Mr. H and Mr. Sarin both stay for a cup of tea and a sourdough muffin. Afterward, Mr. H leads me to the outbuilding that stands a little ways from the main house. The cabin is almost as old as the house itself. It’s had a lot of purposes over the years. Originally, it was used for wood storage and after that, I think, as a garage. When Kyra’s grandfather couldn’t live in his small apartment on Main on his own anymore, Mr. H had the outbuilding completely refurbished into a small, two-room residential space with a kitchenette and bathroom. Kyra’s grandfather lived there for the last years of his life, and after that, Kyra claimed it. She wanted a larger room for her books, magazines, comics, and notebooks, and studio space to paint whenever her manic episodes left her restless and eager to create. It became a hideout for the two of us.
More than anywhere else, this was our home.
As Mr. H unlocks the door, I notice more salmonberry flowers on the windowsill. Kyra mentioned these flowers in her last letter, but that seems to be the only detail that fits with what she wrote about the town and what everyone here is saying.
Inside, I set down my bag in the room that used to be Kyra’s studio and her grandfather’s library before that. Now, it’s as sterile and uncomfortable as a new school uniform. Kyra’s paints and crafts have been removed, and the room has been stripped. Only the old desk and a guest bed remain.
But Kyra’s bedroom door is exactly the way I remember it: painted in bright colors with superheroes sketched all over it. The design changed often, depending on what series she liked best. Last summer, the night before we moved, she painted over a sketch of the Young Avengers and added the Congress of Worlds. Thor stands front and center, and her eyes follow me.
I cross the room and trace the lines on the door. I used to tease Kyra about her fascination with comics, but she took it in stride.
“People have used art and graphics to tell stories for centuries,” she said once. “We could all do with more heroes and tricksters and storytellers.”
I told her, “I’d rather have stars than heroes.”
She laughed. “That’s why we have constellations. To preserve our stories and our heroes in the stars.”
Now I’ll never hear her laugh again. And it hurts. It hurts.
“We’re keeping the door locked,” Mr. H says. “At least until we decide what to do with Kyra’s room.”
With that, he leaves me. I’m glad to be alone and don’t want to be alone at the same time. A chill passes over me.
I take a shower in the tiny bathroom to warm up and wash the travel off of me. Under the hot water, I try to rub away the dark shadows under my eyes, to no avail. Grief cloaks me like a shroud.