Chapter 3

Chapter 3

M y move from the cabin to the RV takes several weeks. I had somewhat forgotten how damn long the path through the dense coniferous forests is. A one-way trip with luggage takes over seven hours. Since I don't want to leave all my leftover canned food behind, I carry half of it to my summer camp: a clearing by a waterfall in the middle of a forest full of spruce, fir, birch, and aspens.

My last hike from the cabin to the RV is in early May.

Lou continues to be my first thought in the morning and the last one at night.

Sometimes I dream about her instead of Jordan, but when I want to touch her, I can never reach her. It's always like looking at her on a screen. In the videos which she has been so generously posting on Facebook for some time now, her voice is exactly how I imagined it. Clear and bright, reminding me of the blue in bluebells, the sky, the vastness, and maybe flying. When I first heard it, I thought I was going to have a blackout. Sometimes, I think Lou comes across like an overdose of life.

After lighting this evening's campfire, I sit down in front of it with my laptop on my lap and watch my favorite video first. A friend of Lou's took it in the Scrivers' parched yard. The camera shot is unsteady, but it doesn't matter. Lou wears shorts with a crocheted lace hem and a light-colored ruffled top that hangs over the shorts. It almost looks like she's wearing a white dress. In the golden evening light, she turns absent-mindedly on the lawn, barefoot, arms outstretched, hair like a sparkling tide lapping around her shoulders. And every time she looks into the camera, my heart aches because surrounded by light, the girl's laughter and the fluttering of the ruffles make her seem like a creature from another reality—intangible, merely a dream.

There are days when I can watch this video 20 times in a row, today, however, a new post distracts me. I've been waiting all day for it because it's not usual for Lou to go so long without leaving an update. Full of anticipation, I switch to her entry.

Hello to all of you out there! Unfortunately, today I have to tell you that I am leaving Facebook for a while .

It takes me a few seconds to truly grasp the meaning of her statement. My pulse starts pounding in my temples as I read the sentence over and over again. I automatically clench my hands and only realize it when I squeeze so hard, my knuckles crack.

What does Lou mean by for a while ? Three days? One week? A year? That can't be—she was so happy on Facebook! Suddenly, a second pop-up window opens at the bottom of the screen and alerts another post from her.

Thank God, this must have been a stupid joke!

I greedily absorb the next few words, and as I read, nausea rises in my throat.

For anyone who's interested in my summer break—here's our itinerary:

6/25–7/1: Sequoia National Park, Lodgepole

7/2–7/8: Yosemite National Park, Tuolumne Meadows

7/9–7/11: Mammoth Lakes, New Shady Rest

7/12–7/15: Death Valley National Park, we don't know yet where exactly!

7/16 Ash Springs

I'm sorry, don't forget me!

The letters dance drunkenly before my eyes. "A while" apparently means a long time. Way too long! It's only the beginning of May now! Judging by the route, she won't be back on Facebook until August at the earliest. But why is she signing off? Does she have a boyfriend who won't let her be on the platform? She never mentioned a guy, I paid special attention to that—it was always about her brothers, her girlfriends, her everyday life. I would have noticed if she had suddenly met someone, I'm sure of it.

Does it have anything to do with the club that she so desperately wanted to join? The Hades-in-Love? They must be in dire need of it if they named themselves after the Greek god of the underworld.

Maybe it's just a bad joke and Lou will soon post: Hah, did you fall for it?

That would be like her! Yes, of course, that has to be it.

I stare at the screen and wait. It feels like December and I am waiting for the ice to crack. What if it wasn't a joke? What if she's gone forever from my life? So what? More trance-like than mindful, I take a screenshot of her last post and save it in the Lou folder. She can't just disappear like that! She shouldn't just disappear like that. What am I supposed to do in the wilderness without her? What reason would I have to get up in the morning and breathe?

I wipe the sweat from my face with trembling hands. Something inside me grows out of control, but before I can smash the laptop to the floor in anger, I refresh the page again.

Please, just let it be a joke!

The connection takes forever to reload the page, and when it finally does, it just says:

404 Not found

Suddenly, m y head is blank. Everything is gone. I reload again.

404 Not found .

She's actually gone! An ominous flicker surrounds me—dark, evil flames eat through my body straight to my soul. Stunned, I set the laptop next to me, get up, and walk in circles around the campfire. Once, twice, three times… Lou cannot have left me. She shouldn't have left me!

A thunderstorm of desperation and anger builds inside me as I blindly wander around. At some point, I thrash the nearest tree trunk like a madman. The splintering bark hits my eye and a sudden pain shoots up my hands through my forearms and into my shoulders.

I'd love to drag Lou out of the computer and ask why she's doing this to me! I scream words into the night that I don't understand. A sort of mishmash of bitter pleading and raging anger. I want to go back to the computer and smash it to pieces to get Lou out of there, but all I do is pound the trunk in front of me. I only stop when my hands are numb and knuckles bloodied.

As if standing next to me, uninvolved, I watch myself stagger around the forest disoriented. The color of the fire and the stars fades and forest and darkness rush toward me, swallowing me alive. I fall…

Light! Bright and dazzling like a thousand suns. The boy squeezes his eyes shut so tight it hurts. Hands grab his collar and pull him into a sitting position.

"There, you little shit. Drink up, and get a move on!"

He feels the cup the monster puts in his fingers and attempts to bring it to his mouth like usual, but his hands won't obey. The vessel slips away from him and an icy liquid spills over his thin shirt. Before he can flinch from the cold, a hard blow hits his neck. His torso is thrown forward, pain exploding in scarlet sparks behind his closed lids.

"You damn bastard, too stupid to even drink!"

Hands push him back into the confinement. He blinks, wanting to take a fragment of the light with him into the darkness.

One, two, three, four… I'm not really here anymore. The lid closes for the umpteenth time. He thinks he can't bear it any longer. The narrowness, the cold, the darkness. The feeling of disintegrating, of being dead.

"Are you crying, you little piece of filth?" Through the narrow gap, he glimpses the stony face and gray eyes. Lifeless but dangerous like a blood-sniffing shark.

"No, sir." His voice trembles. He tenses every muscle and breathes shallowly, trying not to make any suspicious noise. Not a peep. Nothing.

The light grows brighter. The fist slams into his face without warning, accompanied by harsh curses. One, two, three, four… He stops counting, feeling the pain everywhere. His jaw, his nose, his back that bangs against the wood bottom from the force of the blows. Something wet runs down his lips and cheeks. He prays it's not tears.

"You're not crying?"

"No…sir." Words. He doesn't know who's saying them. Everything hurts.

"Capital of Afghanistan?"

"Ka-Kabul." The wetness on his cheeks keeps running.

"Ethiopia?"

Out of a dense fog he hears a soft moan. "Addis Ababa."

"Bulgaria?"

"Sofia."

"Brunei?"

"Bandar Seri Begawan." He feels dizzy.

"United States in alphabetical order?"

He lists them, functioning like a clock that has been wound up. He falters after Pennsylvania and remembers why the man is punishing him this time. He has stalled in the same spot before. But even now he can't remember what comes after Pennsylvania.

The next punch to his face takes his breath away.

"Don't think you'll get off that easily. You think I enjoy homeschooling a stinky bastard like you? Don't you think I have better things to do?"

The boy tries to suck in air but gets none. He swallows convulsively against his narrow throat, trying to hold back the tears and the begging. Neither of which helps. Nothing helps. Only, maybe dying.

When I come to after the flashback, I'm curled up on the ground. Something crawls across my face and I mechanically wipe the spot on my chin where I feel the tingling. This time, I know immediately why I freaked out.

Lou left me!

Instantly, the anger is back, yet underneath I sense something far worse. An infinite void. Just like out on Quiet Lake as if I were looking into a nothingness that has neither a beginning nor an end.

Groaning, I try to hoist myself to my feet but my limbs seem frozen stiff from the cold. I fall forward and land on all fours. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the burnt logs from the campfire.

Disoriented, I peer up at the sky. The few clouds glow a pale red, but it can't possibly be morning already. This would mean that my flash had lasted over seven hours.

With another groan, I sit down on the forest floor and absentmindedly reach for the silver coin on my leather bracelet, encircling it with cold fingers.

Don't let that happen again. Don't let me be left alone again . Even though there's no monster left to fear, I'm afraid. Of every day that I live. Of death that I'm too much of a coward for. Of the dark. Of people. Of loneliness. Of myself. Of never again being able to watch Lou do her sun dance, spinning and laughing dreamily…

The rush of adrenaline triggered by that last thought makes me jump. I tumble madly toward the laptop that's lying on the floor, swipe a few bugs off the vent with the back of my hand, and hammer on the enter key repeatedly because it's taking too long. After what feels like an eternity, I can finally click the bookmark and the page reloads.

404 Not found .

I slam my palm against the keyboard, screaming in anger, but then I reflect for a moment and open Lou's folder. I nervously click on one picture after the other and stare at them with a beating heart.

Lou in skimpy shorts with a cute pout in front of an H Lou rollerblading with blowing hair, in a pink blouse with a blue- and-green cake pop; Lou in the bathroom in front of the mirror taking a funny selfie wrinkling her nose. Lou in starry flip-flops by the lettuce bed with Avery, the brother who looks most like her. Lou's spaghetti with tomatoes and pine nuts… I've gone through them much too fast.

If only I had saved more pictures and not stopped one day. Then I would have something to live on. Live on until when? Maybe she'll never sign in again. Or did she simply disable the account?

I stare at the images again: Lou's oval face, her sweet full lips, her deep blue, round eyes that can banish the darkness around me.

From one second to the next, my veins start to burn, hot and wild. My heart is pounding against my ribs as if I felled ten fir trees. It scares me. Over and over, I try to fight something I feel absolutely powerless against. A burning, irrepressible longing, a tearing tug in my chest. I feel like I can't go even another day without Lou. Somewhere in the back of my mind, images of her here with me appear: Lou, petite and blonde against the dark pine trees; Lou at the waterfall, laughing and splashing water around her; Lou by the campfire with bright eyes; Lou wrapped in a blanket with me in the RV; Lou coming close, so close I can wrap my hands around her tiny waist… My heart runs away with me, into the fantasies I wish I could keep at bay, but they just keep becoming more tangible, more real. My brain is full of Lou!

And as if out of nowhere, suddenly there are her words: Don't you also dream that something will finally happen?

Something is happening to me. It's those pictures of her in the wild. Suddenly, everything becomes clear to me:

I need Lou here with me. From one second to the next, I know this with absolute certainty: I need Lou. I don't want to live without Lou anymore. Only with her does everything make sense. I have to bring her here, to the Yukon, so I can look at her every day. Being able to look at her will make everything alright. She doesn't have to love me, I just need to have her near me. Only then will I be fine again. Only with her can I keep the darkness at bay.

I click on the picture of her looking at the camera almost defiantly, lips pursed. Heat prickles my skin.

Do you want to, Lou? Do you want to come to the Yukon? To me?

Her defiant gaze challenges me.

Could I do this? Could I bring her here?

A surge of pure adrenaline rushes through me at the notion. For seconds, my mind is swept empty and I am carried to a place that seems sweet and enticing. Lou and I here together! Lou in my arms…

A crash in the undergrowth pulls me out of my reverie. In the thicket, I discover a roebuck working on an aspen branch with its antlers in order to get to the young shoots.

Instantly, I feel like I've woken up sober after a binge. What was I thinking? How did I come up with such an absurd idea? Bring Lou here—that's insane!

And yet… Involuntarily, I get up and pace in front of the RV. Would it really be that crazy to bring Lou to the Yukon?

It would not only be insane, it would be utterly insane! No way. But I have to see her! Every day if possible. That has never been clearer to me than now. Only if she is a part of my life will I be happy.

I could go to Ash Springs. The thought is suddenly there. I could park the RV near her home and secretly take new pictures of her via a telephoto lens.

Of course, you could just as well lie down in the Scrivers' yard with a telephoto lens—it wouldn't be any more conspicuous! The giant RV would be as unobtrusive in that small town as a tarantula would be in Avery's tomato-basil spaghetti!

I could buy a car and park the RV outside of Ash Springs.

And what will you do if you get blackouts and break something or hurt someone? Then some longtime, incorruptible local resident calls the police and you'll be behind bars before you can whisper "Louisa Scriver!" And then you'll never see her again.

Dammit!

Like after a fight, I suck the dried blood from my split knuckles. If I can't get to Lou in Ash Springs, how else am I going to see her again?

I could buy a house in Ash Springs, but that wouldn't solve my flashback problem. Even if I'm not lying in wait with a camera, after a few weeks, my strange behavior and blackouts would be noticed. The reason I fled to the Yukon! Plus, would I really want to see in person how Lou takes her boyfriend home one day?

You could be the one she takes home.

Because she really wants you, too. Especially someone like you!

Something in my chest tightens. No, I can't be loved, I can't even be liked. I clench my hands in sheer desperation. I can't find a way to get closer to Lou. Unless, of course…yes, unless I actually bring her to the Yukon.

But she would never willingly come here with me. She already hates Ash Springs, how boring would the wilderness seem to her? Besides, I can't just take her against her will, can I?

Yes, of course you can , a voice deep inside me whispers. The thought of having her with me showers me with a sweet stream of happiness and trepidation.

But kidnaping Lou against her will would mean consciously luring her away from her brothers and her home. Can I really do this?

I listen to my intuition. My conscience suddenly falls silent. Reason is silent. Instead, the images come back: Lou turning and laughing in the light of the campfire. Dancing flames breaking on her face like liquid gold. My heart starts beating like it did weeks ago when I first saw her. Is this fear or joy?

Taking a deep breath, I sit in front of the laptop again. Everything will be fine, calm down! 404 Not found has no power over you. I'll just take Lou with me .

But can I really keep her here against her will? And how do I get her into the RV voluntarily? How am I supposed to do that? Instinctively, I bite my torn knuckle, tasting the metallic note of the blood. I want to see her laugh! She shouldn't suffer. However, she will hardly be convinced of my plan with words.

Hey, Lou, get in, we're going to the Yukon!

Really, now? For how long?

Well, forever of course. Do you want to?

No, words will not suffice. But what other options do I have?

As hard as I think about it, I just can't come up with anything. I definitely don't want to hurt her, yet it may be necessary to achieve my goal. It's a compromise I'll have to make.

I close my eyes and see Lou in front of me. She smiles at me. A pleasant shiver runs down my spine and fireworks of longing, desire, and wild excitement explode in my stomach. I stare again at the photo in which she looks so wildly alluring. I tap my fingertips gently against Lou's face, feeling that tightness in my chest again and the heat blisters on my skin. "You'll be mine soon, little sun girl. Forever and ever you'll belong to me."

The day goes by without me noticing. It's like after a particularly tough fight, everything seems quieter as if the volume had been turned down. I'm swimming in a rush of sweet, pure adrenaline.

Not once do I question my decision. Something inside me has snapped like a bolt that was pushed and is now stuck.

I'll get Lou. This decision comes as a bit of a shock, still, the feeling of being in a daze, the delirium, the thought of doing the right thing for me prevails.

Suddenly, I have so much to do, I feel like I'm on speed. I make lists and jot down everything I know about Lou. She likes citrus blossom body wash, melon gum, and lemon cookies from Cypress. Chocolate donuts, spaghetti, pine nuts, and sundried tomatoes. I go through the pictures in my folder and note down what she's wearing in them and, if she posted it, the brand. In the snapshot of her in the bathroom, I spot soap: Wild Ocean Dream . It, too, goes on my list.

I want Lou just like she's in the pictures and videos that made me so happy for such a long time. She should look, smell, laugh, and dance exactly as I imagine. Also, she will feel more comfortable if things around her are identical to home. Maybe then she won't hate me so much. I quickly push that last thought aside. I don't want to think about everything that immediately follows. There are feelings inside me I don't want to feel, truths I don't want to face. And yet they are anchored in me, deep in my soul, uncannily like the echo of a sonar in the valleys of the sea. Getting rid of them is impossible.

Maybe Lou will even fall in love with me.

Monster!

The pen breaks under the pressure of my fingers. There's something sick and perverse about the idea, even I know that. But the boy from before knows better than that. He was so lonely that he was even willing to love the monster that tormented him.

I don't want to be a monster; I just want Lou to be with me. That's all.

The next morning, I leave the place that has been my home in the summer for the past three years. For the first time in a long time, I have a goal besides getting through the day as quickly as possible. I'm driving back to L.A., the city I grew up in.

Last night, I searched the web for Lou a few more times, but the result was always the same: 404 Not found . Below it a list of all possible Louisas, but no Louisa Scriver. Regardless, even if I had found her again, my plan is made. It seems unalterable to me, just like a strong earthquake near the coast is bound to trigger a tsunami. I've decided to take Lou from one of the campgrounds she posted on Facebook. My mobile home won't attract unwanted attention there. Besides, there is a lot of buzzing activity on the campsites with lots of tourists coming and going. If I'm lucky, I can blend into the crowd and remain pretty much invisible. I haven't figured out yet exactly how to lure her into my RV, but there's still plenty of time for that. First, I need to stock up on supplies, get clothes, and make all the necessary arrangements. I also need things for Lou that I can't easily buy in a store. For the first time in years, I'm happy about my old contacts even if it takes an effort to go back. I'm definitely going to have flashes, but I'm ready to go through all of them. If necessary, I'll chain myself up so I don't hurt anyone. I have to take this risk for Lou.

As I drive down the lonely, deserted roads of the Yukon, I roll down the window and feel the wind whipping through my hair. I turn on the radio and listen to music. When was the last time I sang along to a song? Has it been a year or two? When was the last time I listened to music? I can't recall, but it doesn't matter, not anymore.

After a while, I stretch my arm out the window and begin to enjoy this new state. I feel free even if I don't know exactly from what. It's a bit as if I had died a long time ago and now I've risen again.