‘Shut the door.’ Lucas said from somewhere nearby, and I did, leaving only darkness and strange noises: a rustle of fabric, a scrape of metal, someone fumbling with mechanical objects, and underneath all that, another sound – the unsteady whistle of ragged lungs.
I huddled near the door, waiting, until a flare of light illuminated the tent. Lucas crouched near the chimney in the middle, adjusting the brightness of the lantern. Supplies were stacked along the front wall near me – canisters of beans and dried vegetables, bags of rice, and a hanging rack of tools. I stared at the tip of an ice pick, inches from my face, until a noise from the far side of the room drew my attention. Lucas was bent over a cot, blocking the person lying on it. He unzipped the sleeping bag, unleashing a putrid smell that fell somewhere between unwashed flesh and decaying meat. Gagging, I covered my face with an arm as Lucas whipped away, also fighting for control. His eyes flooded as he coughed. A hand lifted behind him, the fingers bare and skeletal, and grasped Lucas’s knee. That was the last thing I saw before my stomach heaved.
Unzipping the tent, I scrambled out from the boulders and as far away as I could before vomiting into the snow and leaves. The pack cracked against my skull and my skin burned hotter than ever as each contraction ripped at the stitches in my side, turning every retch into a sob. When it was finally over I covered the mess with an armful of needles and crawled a safe distance away.
Lucas came out a few minutes later, his face wet with tears.
‘Are you okay?’
I’d unhooked the pack and was clutching it like a buoy, panting and still haunted by that deathly hand rising from the shadows. ‘He’s alive.’
He nodded and fell to his knees in front of me, covering my hands that were gripping the pack. ‘He’s so much worse. He’d lost weight over the summer, but now he doesn’t even look like my father.’
Maybe he’s not, I wanted to say. Maybe he was never the man you thought him to be. Instead I pulled a hand out from under his and lifted it to his face. He jerked in surprise. ‘You’re burning up.’
‘Is he lucid?’ I pressed. ‘Does he recognize you?’
Lucas nodded.
‘Good. He needs a bath.’
I instructed Lucas to go fetch some fresh water while I stayed with his father and started preparing food. Then, together, we could assess his condition and figure out which medicine to try first. He hesitated, not wanting to leave, but finally agreed and said it wouldn’t take him long to get to the marsh and back. Inside the tent, the fresh air had cleared the worst of the odor and Lucas tugged me forward to his father’s bedside.
Josiah Blackthorn lay on his back. His face was sunken, with the only visible skin stretched pale and gaunt, sandwiched between a dirty hat and beard. The hand that had reached for Lucas earlier dangled off the cot, as if unconnected to any living thing. There was no life in him except for his eyes, which were the same impossible, ghostly blue he’d given to his son and they followed Lucas now, gorging on the sight of him.
‘Dad, this is Maya. She’s—’ He didn’t know how to continue.
‘I’ll stay with you while Lucas gets water.’ I nodded at both of them and settled myself on the ground.
When the sound of Lucas’s footsteps faded away, I turned to the living corpse on the cot. Every trace of the gorgeous, brooding man who’d escaped into the Boundary Waters ten years ago was gone. This was a flesh-covered skeleton, except for two unnatural growths that bulged out of his neck.
‘The snow’s tapering off and it’s not too cold. Would you like some fresh air?’
The blue eyes stared at me. Without waiting for an answer, I pulled the sleeping bag off him and propped him up, threading my arms under his and trying not to breathe through my nose. Dragging him off the cot and out of the tent, I squeezed him through the boulders and in the opposite direction from the marsh. The hugging trees receded into the background of the forest as I jerked his legs over rocks and down inclines. He weighed almost nothing. I could feel the crush of his bones through his jacket and shuddered when, instead of fighting me, his fingers slowly closed over my forearms. On the last drop, I stumbled and fell. Josiah tumbled against a log and I landed a few feet away on a massive boulder, popping at least one of the stitches and crying out in pain.
Holding the bandage and gasping, I waited for Josiah to weakly push himself over and lean against the tree before I remembered my manners.
‘I’m Maya Stark, Jane Stark’s daughter.’
His mouth fell open, but no words came out. This was the culmination of my entire life. Every question I’d been too afraid to ask, every answer I didn’t think I deserved to know, every lock I’d learned to pick, every law I’d broken, every patient I’d subdued, every class I’d taken, every palate strengthener, pronunciation exercise, and vocal pattern, every trick and reward, coaxing the nonverbal to speak, bringing words to the wordless, helping person after person because I’d never been able to have the only conversation that mattered.
But now here it was, the moment of fucking truth, and on top of everything I would keep my promise to Lucas, too.
I pulled the gun out of my boot and pointed it at his chest. ‘Start talking.’
28
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
– Albert Camus
Josiah
Leaving Heather Price crumpled on his patio with the money she’d been hunting for, Josiah went back to the truck where Lucas stared ashen-faced out the window. Wrong ad. He’d picked the wrong advertisement, the wrong landlord, probably the wrong life. Throwing the truck into reverse he felt like shit, like the stink of Heather’s sickness had rubbed off on him and was making his own son turn away from the smell.
‘She was trying to rob us.’ He explained as they headed back to the entry point.
Lucas kept his face turned toward the woods that quickly closed in around them. ‘Then why didn’t you call the police?’
Josiah wiped a hand over his mouth and checked the rearview mirror. ‘Because they don’t help.’
Another mile passed before Lucas broke the silence. ‘I don’t want to leave again. I like it here.’
‘In Ely?’
‘The Boundary Waters.’
Lucas didn’t speak again for the rest of the drive. Josiah debated the odds of finding a new rental, a short-term lease to get them through the end of the school year and possibly even beyond. He doubted Heather would actually take them to court when she barely seemed able to leave her house to go to work. They could find a bunkhouse to start and then maybe he could buy a trailer or even an old cabin somewhere nearby. He hated the idea of a permanent ceiling, but at least there’d be no more landlords, and the Boundary Waters would be right out their back door.