Robert and Monica Anderson owned a camping outfitter store in the tiny border town of Ely, Minnesota. According to their website, they stocked Kevlar canoes, state of the art rain gear, powdered guacamole, and anything else a Boundary Waters voyager could dream of needing for a trek into the wilderness. At 12:26 a.m. on October 5, long past the busy summer season and even the smaller burst of travelers who wanted to see the fall colors from the bow of a canoe, Monica was watching Netflix in their apartment above the store when the sound of smashing glass surprised her. She called 911 and crept downstairs with a utility knife and her phone.
Expecting to find the same kids who’d vandalized a house down the street, Monica was shocked to see a hunched figure behind the store counter, pulling open drawers, rifling through the contents, and shutting them again. Before she could report more than that to the 911 operator, a scream and a series of crashes cut off the rest of the phone call.
Robert, startled awake, grabbed the hunting rifle he kept in their bedroom closet and rushed downstairs to see a dark figure wielding a knife. He aimed into the shadows and fired, but the cry that followed the blast was too high, too familiar. He ran forward as his wife’s body was shoved at him and caught her before she hit the ground. Someone pulled the gun out of his hands and threw it across the store to the sound of more shattering glass. Sobbing on the floor, he cradled Monica and looked desperately around for a phone, a weapon, anything. When the intruder tried to dart past them, Robert lunged for his feet, tripping him. The person responded by flipping over and kicking Robert in the head until he lost consciousness.
The police took Robert’s statement from the hospital, hours before his wife slipped into a coma and died. The intruder, who’d been chased down by responding officers, had to be physically restrained during his mugshot and fingerprinting, which eventually revealed him to be a lost child from the missing persons list. Even in the cryptic language of police reports, it was obvious they hadn’t known what to do next. At nineteen, he was too old for social services to get involved and the most they could charge him with was B&E, attempted robbery, and assault. The Ely police transferred him to Duluth – complaining about extensive damage to the jail cell – and if he was anyone else the judge would have sent him to prison for a few years, but the boy who came back from the dead got a commitment order and a ticket to Congdon.
And now, after two weeks of silent violence and disregard for every human around him, he’d decided to talk. To me.
I read his entire file three times. His mother, Sarah Mason, had died of a brain aneurysm when Lucas was five. Besides his father, Josiah, his only other known relative was a maternal grandfather currently living in an Alzheimer’s unit outside Chicago. He’d attended a series of elementary schools around the Midwest before his disappearance. Good grades – better than mine, like that was a challenge. His therapy notes were less inspiring. The Congdon psychologists had tried communicating with him a dozen different ways: They’d showed him pictures of the Northwoods and of his father, played music popular from the year he went missing, demonstrated games he might have enjoyed as a child, even played the video for all entering campers about how to leave no trace of themselves when they journeyed into the wilderness. I found it on YouTube, all the rules for burying fish entrails, collecting firewood, hauling every scrap of trash back out of the woods, and saw how ridiculous it would look to someone who’d been a ghost for the last ten years, who had probably watched those campers light their choking pine needle fires and dig their shallow fish graves.
After exhausting everything in the file I left Jasper curled up in bed and went to the bathroom, the one room I’d remodeled in an attempt to breathe the Northwoods into our house. I’d refinished the knotty pine cabinets, found the driftwood that was displayed on the back of the toilet, and even convinced Dad to pay for the slate tile floor. He and Butch had been impressed by the results and wanted me to do other rooms, too – the kitchen, the living room – but I kept changing my mind about the paint color and hardware, unable to get it exactly right. Now, though, I didn’t frown at the olive-toned walls. I didn’t cringe at the drawer handles. All I could see was the contrast between my world and everything Lucas had known. This bathroom was as close to the Northwoods as Dr Mehta was to being committed. Pacing the house while Jasper snored, I wracked my brain for a connection, some pathway into Lucas Blackthorn’s head, and by dawn I’d scribbled a list of the few things I knew for sure.
One, something or someone had driven Lucas out of the Boundary Waters.
Two, he didn’t find what he was looking for at the outfitter’s store. The police confiscated nothing from him except a few sharp rocks.
Three, he wanted to escape Congdon, and I’d bet anything he was trying to get back to the glacial waters and shadowed forests that called him home.
The next morning I wrote my first patient transfer order and brought Lucas back to the isolation ward, this time to a room with a desk and two chairs bolted to the floor. I wasn’t allowed to bring any pens or pencils, wear belts or shoes with laces, and I had to remove all the hoops from my ear.
When Stan let me into the room for our first session – take two – Lucas was limping along the far wall and rubbing his wrists. As soon as he saw me he turned, impatiently, like I was late for an appointment. Then his eyes narrowed when an orderly followed me in and took a post at the wall.
‘Hello, Lucas.’
His focus shifted back to me, but he didn’t respond.
I tilted my head. ‘It’s customary to greet people by saying Hi or Hello, followed by their name.’
Lucas nodded slightly and humor played across his features, like he was warming up to a particularly silly game. He took a long breath and tested his voice. ‘Hello, Maya.’
‘This is Bryce.’ I flapped a hand behind me. ‘He’s here to protect me. Do you understand why?’
No answer.
‘Do you remember what happened the last time we met in one of these rooms?’
‘You gave me this.’ He pointed to his leg and took a slow, uneven step.
‘I don’t think you’ – each word out of his mouth was deliberate, as if he was tasting them first – ‘need anyone to protect you.’
I repressed a smile and met his gaze squarely. ‘It’s important you understand how the institution works. Your behavior can earn you trust, and the privileges that go with that trust. Bryce or someone like him will be here until you can prove you aren’t a danger to me or anyone else. At that point you may be able to move into another ward, where you can move freely in common areas and interact with other patients and staff. You can earn grounds privileges—’
He looked confused.
‘The ability to go outside,’ I elaborated and noticed his flare of interest. ‘Walk around the yard and get some fresh air. You might also earn day trip privileges, where you go out into the town with one of us on staff.’
‘You would take me into the town?’
‘Maybe me and Jasper.’