Something of a Kind

chapter 7 | ALYSON

When her father picked her up, the only thing he had to offer Aly was a lecture on how her unpreparedness proved inconvenient. After spending several minutes shaming, complaining, and making it clear that he refused to recognize his own part in locking her out, he dropped his keys on the coffee table. Claiming he would be out of town, whereabouts need-to-know, Greg explained his organization utilized carpools and commuter lots. The SUV was at her disposal under the condition of responsible behavior. They parted ways in the stairwell.

If he's just going to barricade himself in the basement, I'm staying upstairs.

With Noah racing through her thoughts, it wasn’t long before she swore to distract herself. Overthinking was leading to over-analysis, enabling invasive doubts.

What is he thinking, feeling? What will we be? And what was Greg’s fit all about?

Her father averted the subject of Noah, but his resulting glare left her uninterested in hearing his opinion. She didn’t want to discuss anything with him.

My life here deserves to be separate.

If Greg thought Noah would be off-limits because Lee Lockwood was ‘business with an elder,’ the man would be disappointed. Rude looks were one thing, but intervention was a line she hoped he wouldn’t cross.

If he’s unobtrusive, I’ll stay out of this insane Ashland ‘researcher’ controversy.

Without words, her father was under her skin.

Normal girls would ache beneath a smile, drag a dozen outfits from their closets, gush to their friends and mother. Aly liked him, but was it like that? Did Noah think so? How would her mother feel about it?

She’d think I was trying to forget her, to escape in him. Oh God… am I?

Alerted by the strain in her back and the hair nervously twisted around her fingers, Aly forced herself out of bed. Her exhaustion was useless against a mind that wouldn’t shut off. Still dressed in the day’s clothes and sick with unease, she wasn’t prepared to sleep.

Aly needed to get her mind off things before it exploded. Her first instinct was to blast music and draw, but her materials were buried and Greg was probably sleeping, even if he was in the depths of the basement.

I need to do something. Assigning a task shouldn’t be this difficult.

If her window wasn’t fixed, she would’ve crawled onto the overhang above the back porch. Aunt Lauren's creaky Victorian had a set of twin balconies, one overlooking the lake, another exposed to the street. Between closing her eyes to a steady breeze and watching boats that left foam paths in their wake, she found peace there. There was an unaffected calm in the midst of the gnawing grief. Serenity offered a life after her mother. It promised a ceasefire.

Lakes were intimate, spared from the travel of whispers in the currents. They trusted the sky, not the jigsaw of bodies. They were whole in themselves, not intended to a direct part of something bigger.

After spending time in Ashland, it was impossible not to notice the ocean constantly in her peripheral. It was a muscle she could only turn her back to while it flexed in supremacy.

She forgot about it only when surrounded by trees, cloaked by the forest. The roar of the tide was raw. Aly left it in the distance. She hadn’t ventured onto the sands. She saw ash everywhere, glass and slivers beneath the paper dust. Normalcy had already been swept out to sea. There was no comfort in its presence; it constantly threatened to take the ground away.

From the Ashland house, she could hear the bay, but it wasn’t in her face, not like downtown. The window faced the backyard, embracing the sights of foliage along the edge of the property. Tall trees surrounded them, isolating the house. They went on for miles, looping around the homes in wide arcs, weaving into public trails or pressing against the edge of the coast.

Even as she imagined their empire, fused throughout the last frontier, she couldn’t watch them forever. Invisible maps curled beneath her skin, skewed across her skull, dripping along her inner eyelids. As much as she embraced the cage around her, the anxieties sprouted within, flooding her thoughts, spreading to her chest, her sternum.

It’s like drowning in silk, tossing it across the trees.

Noah’s blinding sunshine, Greg’s black glare, the crimson fears

– the lilac shades of absence, the umber burial, the imperfect ivory grief. A wrap of colors, stuffed in her airways. It was a plague of fear, overwhelming her nerves, swelling in her joints, burning in her lungs.

Turn it off.

She felt her aunt and uncle’s steely Victorian in her p ocket. Greg’s stare was across the room, his invasion breathing down her neck. Noah brushed her lips, his flesh in her fingertips. Her mother lay just beyond them, beyond reach, burning embers amongst the stars. All of them, standing over her shoulder, apparitions grabbing onto her throat. Bodies piled in her chest, clawing her convulsing lungs, pounding against her spine, shoving against ribs, rattling her sternum in demands of release.

Get out.

With fiery licks at her calves, she spun on her heels. Her mother ran from the room, disappearing into the shadows of the hall. Her emerald eyes a hazy gray, a sad smile luring her forward. Alyson ran after, her feet suddenly bare, touching the cold hardwood. A laugh pulled her back to the room, her mother dressed for a gallery, legs crossed, sitting politely in an oak chair.

This isn’t real.

“It’s alright, baby.” Vanessa lied, her lips never moving.

Wind shattered the window at her back, waves crashing through and sending her falling forward with a scream. Aly backed against the wall, shaking and untouched. As the waters pulled out, the glass reassembled. Her mother was pulled into her hospital bed, hooked into the wall like it had been there all night. Her heartbeat monitor thudded, her IV alarm screaming in offense against a bent cord.

“Momma?” Aly whispered, trembling, hesitantly stepping towards dark hair spread across the starched pillows. The force of the windows shattering again sent her flying backwards, a red-eyed beast crashing onto her bedroom floor.

Its legs twisted to gain footing, spinning to the side, running at Vanessa. It pitched itself over, pulling the tubes from her hands, the stickers from her chest, the mask from her post-chemo face, paperskin ridden with blue veins. The roar of a dozen coyotes rumbled from its chest as it clawed her, dragging her mother’s body, convulsing without oxygen, from the plastic mattress.

Aly dry-heaved, clutching her head, falling to the floor, curling into fetal position. She wanted to scream or grow breathless, to run or to run at it, assault or escape. She couldn’t move.

With one leg sending her mother out the window, into the murmurs in the shadows, it tackled Aly to the floor. The pressure of a building dropped onto her chest, sending the air rushing from her lungs.

She awoke on the floor, a sheet tangled around legs still clad in tight jeans. Sweat plastered hair across her forehead, holding damp clothes to the crevices of her back. She rested a hot cheek against the hardwood, smelling sweet and bitter from lemon-scented cleaners.

A sigh escaped from her lips as she pushed herself up. A forearm that had been tucked beneath her head was flushed and red, imprinted with the outline of her mother's necklace. A sensation of pins and needles shot through the limb when she balled a fist.

Aly hadn’t undressed but the lights were off. Her iPod buzzed on the bed, the earplugs thrown from her ears as she dozed off. The moon still hung high above the horizon, the bold sign of an ungodly hour. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be sleeping for a while.

Tremors shook her frame. Adrenaline was easing from her bloodstream. In the blue shadows of nighttime, she made her way to the window. It hadn't cracked, totally unscathed. Summer heat had begun to set, sweating condensation clinging in patches rather than dusted across. Observing her reflection, her fingertips traced the shape of her flashing eyes. They were a cold blue, eerily magnified by old makeup staining black rims below her eyelids. Noticing a shift in the trees, she flicked the light on.

It was a long night.

Greg had filled the extra bedroom with paint cans, though most had been used and poorly mixed. Avoiding damp spots on the tarps with her bare toes, she managed to uncover clean whites and a modest heather gray. Unable to sleep, she piled her things in the center of the floor and began exterminating the sickly green from her walls.

While it dried, the pile of cardboard in the hallway grew as she filled the empty furnishings. Novels packed the bookshelf. Underthings and sketchbooks made their way to the dresser. Clothes slid over their hangers and relocated to the walk-in closet. Photographs, sketches, and non-canvas paintings were assigned to vintages frames, and nailed to the walls long before they dried. Thosethat didn’t fit were rotated in and out of a strip of gallery-style space until it felt exact, the final remainder an unsightly stack in the corner. She knew she was being loud.

Greg shouldn't have left the hammer in the hallway. She didn't care if he was disturbed.





~

Déjà vu from a midnight nightmare, Aly awoke on the ground at sunrise, hands caked with color and overwhelmed by the fumes of latex.

With a throw pillow tucked beneath her aching neck, she found herself in what she wore the night before– ripped jeans, easy-fit tank, cropped sweater– all splattered in paint. After pulling curtains over barren rods and covering the window, she stripped of her clothes and sprinted for the attached bath. Cleansed by a hot shower, she dressed, reassembled the room, and scrubbed away the wake of her breakdown.

Paint, with gray. Too much white, not enough black.

The commute into town was peaceful. Mist hung low on the street, the sky still dark at an early 6 AM. Without Greg in the car, it was open season on the controls. With the air conditioner blasting and her mp3 plugged into the speakers, cherry nails tapped the steering wheel along to The Script.

Aly wasn’t familiar with the area, but she recognized the nearest streets well enough. With the few signs she eyed, twenty-five milesperhour wasn’t unreasonable. The switches to Greg’s SUV weren't overtly different from the spunky Honda Fit she shared with her mother before her father entered her life, so blinkers weren’t an issue. Her seatbelt held her firmly to the seat. Unless the lights weren’t working or a stop sign had been hidden in the brush, the flashing in her rearview mirror seemed unwarranted.

Easing to a stop, she silenced the speakers and lowered the window. She found herself fidgeting, waiting for the officer to run her plates.

I thought this was a warden and peace-monitor jurisdiction, unless it's a statewide trooper. Do they really need them all?

“Do you mind telling me why you’re operating a vehicle registered to a Mister Gregory M. Glass?” One man asked, stretching his lean frame to the full height, rather than leaning beside her. His partner rounded the other side of the car. With a twist of her fingers, she motioned to roll the window down.

This is bizarre.

Aly complied.

“Greg’s my father,” s he stated, forcing herself to make eye contact. The man’s were brown, murky and dull, not like the chestnut shine of Noah’s, or her own piercing blue.

“I wasn’t aware he had a kid,” the woman challenged. Veins in her neck shifted as she spoke. Her hair was tied into a tight bun, exposing small features and thin lips impacted in her ruddy face. “License and registration.”

How would she know? They don't even have an official police station in Ashland.

Thumbing her license from her bag in the passenger seat and pulling documents from the glove box, she handed them to the male. His partner glowered. He frowned and nodded, as though they expected an authenticity issue.

“I moved in a couple of nights ago,” she added, “He’s currently on a work trip.”

“Very well,” the female officer huffed. She sucked in her belly to push straying folds of her polo beneath the hem of her pants. She wasn’t heavy, but had a masculine build. The woman was graceless, moving like she had just stepped into her skin for the first time. “Are you aware he’s wanted for questioning?”

Aly quirked a brow. “It's news to me. What for?”

The male coughed. As the officers exchanged uncomfortable glances, she revised, "If you don't mind me asking, of course."

“Not at all," he said. "His facility, p articularly him, is in some trouble for unmarked traps, probably big game. Failing to tag is illegal and black bears haven’t been in season since June tenth. Several witnesses also claim he’s been marking off public trails for private recreation, and he’s not obtained any permits to do so. You see why it’s important he step forward and clear things up?”

“If he’s hunting, I’m sure he has authorization.” She was unable to comprehend why everyone in Ashland seemed to think her father was part of some bigfoot, cult 'researcher' conspiracy. The nagging feeling that she shouldn’t be hearing any of their accusations was becoming difficult to swallow.

Aren’t researchers supposed to sit in urban labs and stare at neon beakers? I can’t imagine him getting more adventurous than taking samples from an on-campus pond or something.

“We need to see them, either way, Miss. You need to have your father contact the fish and game warden or the state trooper’s office and proper investigative bureaus immediately.”

Aly suppresseda groan, eying the clock. She and Noah hadn’t agreed on a time, but she didn’t want to miss it, whenever it was.

“I’ll tell you what, on the nights he’s actually home, my best guess is he normally leaves just after six. I don’t know where he is, what he’s doing, or when he’ll be back. I’m assuming it’ll be today or tomorrow.”

“Alright. Can we take a name?”

“Alyson Mackenzie Glass.”

“Do you have a number we can contact you at?” He continued.

“No,” Aly lied. “I just moved in. Nothing’s switched over yet.”

My life deserves to be separate from him. This is his problem, his fault.

“What’s your mother’s contact information?”

“My mother’s dead.”

“Funny. What’s your mother’s address?” The man’s condescending pitch altered his former monotone.

“Saint Anne’s Cemetery, row three, plot twenty-eight. Threehundred South Adirondack Road. Kingsley, New York.” Her hair slid between her fingers as she rested her head in her palm. “If you manage to reach her, let me know.”

“Right,” he coughed, tugging on his collar. “ Your license is registered to the state of New York. You should have it transferred to Alaska within sixty days.”

“I'll have to do that, then,” Aly sighed.

“Have a good day, Miss,” the woman offered. There was an apology behind her words. Her steel gray glare now focused on her partner.

“Have a good day yourself, Officer.” Smirking, she watched them retreat to their cars like kicked puppies. The questions in her head weren't worth prolonging the experience.

Or the flaming clouds of awkward.

Ignoring the scrutiny at her bumper, Aly shifted into drive and pulled onto the road. She could almost see the center of Ashland, the red and blue rooftops of the shack-style buildings a blur around the corner.

She couldn’t get away fast enough.





~

Aly peered through the dark windows of Yazzie's. Sunlight splashed across the tables, failing to reveal any inhabitants. She debated whether or not to knock as a flash of motion exhaled from the kitchen.

Noah was engrossed in conversation. She could tell he was comfortable. His was posture loose, a laid-back smile on his face. The voices were too muffled to distinguish, but the hearty sound of their laughter traveled through the glass.

His coworker stepped into view, an apron tied around her torso. A vintage diner name tag was pinned to the lapel of a white polo, uncovered by the stretched out neckline of a cerulean sweatshirt, its sleeves rolled to the crevices of her elbows.

Her dark hair was smoothed into a pony tail, exposing a pretty face swollen with receding baby fat. As she started an industrial coffee maker, a flash of capris and beaded flip flops danced beneath the raised counter. Her eyes, dark and round, met Aly’s with curiosity, a small smile curving into one blushing cheek. Noah was easily six feet tall, and the girl was a good head shorter. She shared his milky tan and dark eyelashes. It wasn’t difficult to see the resemblance.

The infamous Sarah.

Aly found Noah’s wholesomeness charming. The trait seemed more childlike in his sister. It wasn’t difficult to imagine her as a toddler. Oddly petite compared to the other thickset locals, Sarah still looked like she could get swept into the sea.

Recalling her nightmare, Aly suppressed a shiver. A smile brightened her face as Noah waved. He sprinted for the door like he had the time before, as though he couldn’t bear to keep her waiting. It didn’t look like Yazzie’s had opened yet. He wasn’t dressed for work, his plain tee and dark jeans replaced with a red hoodie and shorts.

“Am I driving?” Aly twirled the keys on her index finger. Noah grinned, shaking his head and motioned for her to follow as he rounded the building.

Dirt clung to Yazzie’s chipping paint, the rain causing it to gather in lines like the inner layers of rock. The elevated foundation’s vibrant mural presented rivers of fish.

When Noah noticed her scrutiny, he explained, “It’s based off of this bus in Ketchikan. Tony spent a few nights at a motel there, and saw it driving through a lot. He said it was painted for a festival because they’re the salmon capital of the world or something. Sarah wanted to see, so we let him try and recreate it with chalk. MaryAgnes – my mom, she fell in love with it because Lee co-owns a sister fishery. Eventually Tony came back and made it permanent.”

Aly watched him as he spoke. His eyes flashed at Lee’s name but crinkled with fondness at his sister and mother’s. Running his hands through his hair, he motioned to the painted waves. His movements were rhythmic, his voice expressive.

Absorbed in his story, he lured her into each sentence. Free from the eyes of his friends or the prey of stress, he seemed genuine and animated. His attention was compulsive. Feeling silly beneath his gaze, she forced herself to look away.

“What are the symbols for?” Curiously, she eyed the bold swirls.

“It’s the life cycle of a salmon. They travel to mate and spawn, then return to the rivers they were born in to die. The babies eat the plankton that ate their parents, and on it goes.”

Despite the colorful graffiti, Yazzie’s aged wood made it look more like a barn than a restaurant. She had noticed the attached home with a rooftop widow’s walk and a freestanding shed. A grassy four-yard slope in the backyard set the property apart from the shops beside the docks. Noah took her hand as she skidded over it.

The diner stood out from the other structures along the Ashland Bay Marina, most of its company catering to flightseeing, kayakers, and the boating harbor. Some neighbors had brown roofs plagued with rot and moss and outer walls painted in reds and sea-foam greens. Others had cornflower blue vinyl siding with rusting shingles and eggplant shutters. Many held vintage signs, fading under the weather. Only a few of the cartoonish logos had been retouched.

All freestanding signs, carvings, and statues in front of open businesses were chained or roped in place, to withered topiaries or stone banisters, trash cans or storm doors. Those without them held aged ‘for-rent’ announcements and barren storefronts. A glance through the window revealed the remains of bankruptcy and foreclosure. Stained carpets and exposed cement floors were covered in papers and disposable dishes. Outdated appliances, cords awry or hacked away, piled in the center of some or left in the display of others.

It’s a ghost town.

As a flashlight flickered, she noticed sleeping bags in the shadows of a former gift shop. Sadness swelled in her chest at the entrance’s broken locks. Noah gently tugged her wrist when she lingered. The wake of his skin left hers warm as he pulled away, the chill relieved only when his hand once again migrated into hers.

She kept her gaze locked on the horizon. Blue mist coated the mountaintops, amplified by a backdrop of the bold greens of southeastern Alaska’s temperate rainforest. The coast seemed to curl around the bay, its sky-view geography looking more like the edges of a hurricane than land tossed out to sea. Despite the rugged landscape, it seemed oddly natural, not unlike the quaint curves of the lakes back home.

Aly could recall the PDF brochure from Ashland’s Chamber of Commerce, a basic website with hokey fonts and navigation as unwelcoming as her worst-case-scenario preconceptions of the town. Textual information was limited to a bulleted list of activities and a certain Captain Howard’s speech-bubbled fishing tip for tourists: Get him with yer hooch, whack him on the head, stick him, pick him– in the pail he goes! Its only company was a black and white photograph, dated for the nineteen forties, captioned for when the town’s center had been reconstructed, and an elementary political map.

The border of Ashland covered much more land than residents, looping through miles of woods. Resembling a near-perfect shape of a whale, the black marker carved the image into the coast, horizontal or upside-down, depending how she glanced at it. On paper, the parallel peninsulas arching to form the bay looked like flippers and flukes. From the docks, they were looming masses fused with mountains, autonomous creatures that had risen from the bay.

It’s so surreal. I’m not the one in Kingsley anymore. It’s just mom there now, still and silent.

Aly bit her lip.

Following her gaze, Noah gestured to the sifting tides. “It’s the best place to swim for miles, and one of the only areas in AK that’s warm enough. On the edges of the Marina, there are natural beaches. Not too crowded, but between the enclave and the sandbar a ways out, the water’s mellow.”

“Mellow?” She clarified, disbelieving.

It was in constant motion, not loud or crashing up close, but churning, waves like sheets drawn over a bed. Where the lakes rippled and slumbered, the body tossed without ease, an insomniac. Just a yard away from her feet, the water was too dark, a plunge from the suspended boardwalk, foam and surfacing seaweed wafting below the wood. There was nothing to wade into, just a fall.

“It’s shallow by the beaches. This part is for boating,” he replied, nodding towards bobbing smudges on the horizon. “There are different types, but most work through the fisheries – commercial. Seiners, longliners, trollers.”

As they rounded a corner, the smear of sand materialized at the end of the descending walk. Noah moved forward to warn her of a large step, an abrupt change in the landscape.

Glancing sideways, Aly caught him watching her. She smiled as a flash of red pooled in his cheeks, gone as fast as it appeared. It was strangely suiting, despite adjacency his masculine jaw. Warmth streaked across her skin. She felt herself echo his blush. As they walked, he moved to face the shore, his gaze lingering on small piles of gray.

“See those? People actually stack rocks to catch fish when the tide pulls in and out. It’s been receding for years, but the beach is still full of life. There are beginnings everywhere. The indents are tide-pools. Crabs, periwinkles, mussel shells, limpits, sculpin.” He pointed out each as they surfaced, his voice trailing as the sand disappeared behind them.

Along the edge, the wind picked up, tousling the hair around her face, pulling currents in the loose fabric at her back. Tucking a lock behind her ear as it whipped her eyes, Aly noted that she wasn’t the only one assaulted at the shore. Rather than sharing her feelings of apprehension, Noah smiled into the gust, squinting against the current. He left a hand outstretched, palm curved to bear the front of the air like it extended from a vehicle’s open window. Amused, she allowed herself to fall into his step, shielded by his frame.

Taking a path parting the trees, he jumped the bars of a street’s dead end, offering a hand as she followed. Sprinting through a private yard filled with old tires and forgotten toys, they crossed into the lot of an apartment building. Waterlogged mulch was strewn over the curbs, clinging to her shoes when she passed. Weeds curled through broad cracks in the asphalt. Smashed windows were covered with duct tape and trash bags. Aly doubted the area was maintained, nonetheless populated.

As she put the black top behind her, she wondered if he’d forgotten his way to the tunnels. Noah moved with purpose, eyes locked on each destination. Still, it seemed erratic to her, as though the shortcut was more of a meandering. It became a game – guessing where his next twist in the maze was. Rather than taking the sandy path behind the building’s dumpsters, they moved through the trees. She shadowed as he followed a stream of runoff and scattered boulders, over a rundown train bridge, rounding walls of rock, cutting across unmarked hiking trails.

Every once in a while Noah pointed out a seemingly characterless object and identified it as a personal landmark or a destination for local teens, reciting stories that roused laughter and quirking smiles. His childhood soaked the ground. Every leaf had seen his journey. Noah was home. She found herself hushed, for a moment wishing it were hers, too.

When he fell silent, she imagined herself as a child – scrawny, pale, and precocious, with dark ringlets braided down her back, uncovering his adventures on the tracks, owning the small town friendships like a birthright.

What she had with the kids back home was flimsy, shifting year to year. She had never had the relationship that didn’t dissipate when the pain was too great to share, not outside of the family she was raised with. The odd-couple bonds between Noah and his friends were tangible, strong. Still quiet, Aly focused on his breathing, listening for the howls from the night on the ATVs.

Something made those boys run for the hills.

“So,” he said finally, “how’d you score your dad’s keys?”

“He’s out of town for work.” Her fingers shifted to prod her back pocket for reassurance. She added, “I met the living room for the first time this morning over coffee. Apparently, we have Syfy in common.”

A burst of laughter erupted from his chest. “Who would’ve thought?”

She smiled, pleased with herself. “It’s really that ironic?”

“If you knew my dad and his obsession with your dad and his obsession, then yes.” He joked. “Unless you meant it the sense of cliché.”

She blinked, trying not to be impressed. Recovering, she dramatically swept a hand across her forehead, joking, “So Doctor Freak drives someone else insane too? Phew! I thought I was the only one.”

He smirked. “There is nothing that does not irritate or disappoint my dad, including yours. No offense.”

“Except for you?”

“Especially me.” Noah sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I probably won't live up to expectation. And I certainly won't grow my hair that long. Did you notice? It’s ridiculous."

She laughed through a sad smile, knowing the ache of shortcoming. “If it’s any consolation, I get that. My father acts like I carry the Tvirus. I still have no idea what he does.”

“But hey, it’s definitely not bigfoot right?”

“I wouldn’t know. You probably know more than I do. I don’t think my mom knew him, either.What’s to know?” She shrugged. “What I mean, though, is I understand. I don’t see much of a point in trying to please the unappeasable. Life’s too short.”

“Jerks are too jerky,” he agreed, amused. The line dropped it like an old lyric, the repetition of familiar advice. As they converged with another footpath, he nudged the piece of metal hammered to the ground. “We’re almost there.”

Someone’s been here a while.

Everything had fallen against the elements, destroyed and mudsoaked. She made out discarded cigarettes, greeting cards, old clothes, and cardboard signs – the only intelligible ones holding something along the lines of, ‘wish you were here’ or ‘anything helps, God bless’. Even a few washcloth hand puppets were integrated with the rubble. She couldn’t decide whether to call it a landfill or a graveyard, inevitably electing for the latter.

The more she stared, the more organic the scene felt. It was beautiful in a crumbling way. Her gaze traveled ahead of her, far along the tracks as they stretched on only to curl into the wooded mountains.

“They’re been some really hard times out here,” she observed.

Noah nodded. “Yeah. It’s always been hard for locals. The town hasn’t been… well, flourishing, since World War II, back when everyone worked in this big factory that mass-produced and handpacked cans filled with protein. Mostly fish, I guess. Ashland’s pretty new compared to most of the area. Or in general.”

Aly felt her jaw slack and closed it, nibbling her lip as though it would lock in place. “What do you mean?”

“These tracks are older than this town. A lot of the land here is blown out of rock, so there’s not much history for this area. There are a lot of natives that migrated from other little tribes, but that was a few generations ago. Therearen’t any pure groups, not ancient or anything. We’re not even considered a reservation, though some people call it that anyway. The families are old, but we don’t do powwows or potlatches or anything like that. Some people do, but because of where they’re from genetically. It’s why it’s so hard to narrow down the legends, because most of them were adopted and distorted from other people.” His voice trailed off, racing past her distant stare, melting into the horizon. As he spoke, he went somewhere else – wherever his stories came from. Realizing he returned from the silence to wait for a response, she nodded dumbly.

Where do the words go?

“I mean, Ashland is pretty westernized, but it’s not like we have no tradition at all. We still have elders, even though they’re practically self-appointed. We have music, dance troupes, art. And of course, legends.”

“Like the bigfoot thing?”

“Yeah. There’s plenty about that – most call him Hairy Man because of some old newspaper article. There are tribes that call it Omah or Gigit. You’d say bigfoot or sasquatch.”

“Actually, we’ve got other words for it too. There are myths where I come from, too. Kingsley is a city, but it’s a city in the middle of nowhere. The Adirondacks are infamous for it. My grandfather used to say they lived in abandoned watch towers.”

“It seems like the Hairy Man is stalking you, then.” He grinned, squinting to the sky. “They say the stars do too.”

“I get that. It’s like when you’re a child, and you expect your car to pass the sun, but it’s a tease, the size of your thumb, just dipping behind trees.”

“I did that too,” Noah laughed, raising his hand and closing one eye to cover the beam in the sky. “Have you heard of the sun thieves?”

She shook her head.

“It’s one theory, I suppose. The sto ry of where the stars come from. There was once a man who was terribly wise. Going into his village, he spoke about the worth of all people. He said, ‘the Sun is made of gold and the Moon of silver’, because equality by nature is meant to unchallenged, never influenced by men. A group of thieves fled to the woods, where they climbed the highest tree on the mountain, and ran along the rays of light through the sky, to the Sun.”

“That’s one way to go about it,” she noted, filling the lapse in his words.

“When the Sun saw them,” he continued, “she grabbed the thieves, crushing them in her hand. She kissed the earth, and scattered them across the sky with a breath of light. She warmed the earth in the center, creating the stars. Supposedly, when people die, theSun makes more stars.”

He spoke quickly to conclude as they rounded another wall of rock, slowing to a stop as the tunnel came into view. She had expected a sort of overpass, but the hole was narrow, carved out of the mountain. He paused, stretching an arm to prevent her from going forward. Whistling inside, he listened for a response. Hearing only an echo, he ducked in to press against the walls, nudging wooden beams. Sighing, he warned, “We should be careful. It’s pretty old.”

Some sections had crumbled away, erosion taking the stone where rot had taken wood platforms. She assumed Noah’s hesitation to go further inside was related to the structural instability. From the fallen rocks scattered across the ground, it was a rational concern.

Every visible inch of the original wall was covered, some pieces extending far beyond what the sunlight illuminated. The uneven surface of the stone hadn’t inhibited the artists and vandals. Paint filled the nooks and crannies in the same way the Japanese aggrandize cracks with gold. In the fresher pieces, it bubbled like only leaving a spray-can focused on a single section too long could.

The majority of the mural was a forest of trees. They were inverted, not unlike the cedars in Alaska’s Glacier Gardens advertised in every gas station from Juneau to Ashland. Roots sprayed from the top like weeping branches, disheveled. The top was cropped to one side, as though half the trunk gave way before the other. Several bears lay in submission at their feet while whales were tossed across the tops. It wasn’t clear whether they were victims to the bird with a frowning star wedged in its beak or the brown mass in the center, its looming features like monkey fused with a man. Arms stretched to the sky while knees curled to its chest, its head coned, its lips round in a howl.

Aly pointed, afraid to touch the dirty paint, as though it would streak away. “This is the sasquatch?”

He nodded, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Head of the food chain – or so I’m told.”

“Really,” she murmured, head cocked to the side. “It seems like whoever made this was pretty freaked.”

“Wouldn’t you be? They’re supposed to be big enough to rip trees out of the ground and flip them straight upside down.”

“Bigfoot did this?” Aly gasped, fingers hovering over the swirls that textured the bark.

“I think the artist did,” he teased.

Forcing a smile, she met his eyes before turning back to the wall. She hadn’t expected to see concern.

“Unless Hairy Man’s artistically inclined,” she ribbed, hoping he’d loosen up. “Do you think there’s anything to it?”

His brow furrowed. “Honestly? No. I don’t think you should look into it so much, either. The people around here… they get caught up in themselves, especially stories. If you ask me, they take it way too seriously.”

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” she said suddenly. The locals clearly spent laborious amount of time on the belief– even the younger generation was up to date.

I’m an idiot. It didn’t even occur to me that I’m being offensive.

“Aly, that is so not what I meant. At all.”

Aly winced. Great. Now asking if I was being ignorant made me ignorant. Can this topic just disappear?

“I just meant that you shouldn’t let anyone scare you,” he continued. “You don’t have to be afraid of anything.”

She raise d her brow, surprised. “I’m not afraid,” Aly admitted, staring at her shoes. Sliding her gaze to meet his, she whispered, “I feel very safe with you.”

Noah smiled. “Good, because I’d protect you.”