13. MEGHAN

Oquirrh Mountains, Utah

1 year before

I watched in amazement as the woman with the blond messy bun abruptly pulled onto the sloping shoulder of the dirt road, her front bumper just a few feet away from the shoe.

As I watched her through the windshield, I could see that she was crying. Crying hard. Her shoulders shook a little as she lay her head against the steering wheel.

I didn't know why she was crying. Or whether I had anything to do with it—like what had happened with the coyotes and the eagle. But regardless of why, she had stopped.

I couldn't cry with her, but I let the waves of grief flow through me while she cried, letting them crash over me. I mourned my parents. I mourned Sharesa. They knew by now that I probably wasn't coming back. I was dependable to a fault. I never left voicemails or texts unreturned. Unless there was something very wrong.

I called up the faces of the people I loved and felt the sadness settle around me like a heavy blanket. I'd never considered the fact that mourning might go both ways. Instead of mourning one person, I was mourning everyone I had ever cared about. They were all gone now.

Inside the vehicle, the girl cried harder. Loud, ugly sobs that I could hear as well as if she were standing next to me.

I tucked away my memories and just watched her for a few minutes. In the passenger seat was a purple-and-blue backpack with a water bottle strapped onto the side. As I peered into the window, I could see that she was wearing hiking boots. There wasn't any camping gear that I could see anyway, which pointed to a day of hiking. Perhaps a day away from whatever was behind the tears coursing down her cheeks onto the steering wheel.

I watched anxiously as she finally sat upright with a shuddering breath. She studied her reflection in the rearview mirror and wiped her eyes.

"Please don't go. Please get out," I coaxed.

She didn't react.

But a few minutes later, she took the car keys in one hand and stepped out of the car.

She closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun that was streaming through the branches and took a deep breath.

I watched, mesmerized.

The shoe was right in front of her.

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes again, gazing at the scraggly trees, her eyes landing on the mostly hidden fork in the road that led to my body.

She took a few steps forward and I urged her on. "Yes. Keep going, okay? Please."

She put her car keys in her pocket and walked far enough to see that the sorry excuse for a road did indeed continue in that direction, rutted and mostly overgrown.

The raven's dark form circled overhead, and she made a sort of muttering cackle.

The girl stopped and watched, then looked back at her car. Somewhere over the hill, in the brush, a twig snapped.

She frowned and wrinkled her nose. "Nah," she muttered, then turned on her heel, heading back toward her car.

I reached out for her retreating shoulder. My hand rested lightly on top of her kelly-green tank top. "No, don't go. Please. Nobody else will stop."

She kept going.

When she reached the driver's side of the car, she pulled her keys out of her pocket and looked behind her, as if someone were following her.

Technically, she was correct.

I backed up a few steps, wondering if it was my fault. Had I scared her?

The despair came back, and I felt myself sinking under it as she turned the key in the door.

I closed my eyes.

But the door didn't slam shut. And the car didn't pull away.

When I opened my eyes, she was still standing by the open driver's side door, looking right at me.

I really thought she could see me for a second by the confused look that slowly spread across her face.

She took a few steps toward me then crouched in the dirt.

That was when I realized she had seen the shoe—and the little altar the raven had built.

The girl with the messy bun frowned as she studied the bleached coral shoe with the dark stain. She didn't touch it.

After a few minutes, she shook her head again and returned to the car.

This time, she rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a cell phone. She took two photos. One up close, and one a little way back that showed the sign for Big Eddy Campground in the distance.

I told myself that it didn't mean anything. That the photos couldn't possibly mean anyone would ever find me. For all I knew, she was planning to post the images to her Instagram account with the hashtags #pickupyourtrash and #protectourplanet.

But as the engine turned over and she drove away I still whispered, "Thank you," before I could no longer hear the sound of her engine.